Alas
By Ace Boggess
Statewide Lockdown, Day Twenty-Six
Were the virus not writing us
letters in vanishing ink,
we might meet up for a few
minutes of frantic under-sheet
panic, the usual kind,
human as invention of gods,
awareness of nearness to death,
etc. What prevents us
from inciting our hang-ups
is a hang-up, too: rock
inside a snowball, spiders,
heights, anything that freezes.
I would be there with you
if first I didn’t need to
steady my vibrating hands
& defuse this bomb.
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Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, including Escape Envy (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2021), I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So, and The Prisoners. His writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble.
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